Good Morning from Upper Darby! I have been asked what exactly are ARCs and what is the difference between them and PAGAN-CORPS, PAGAN-Mang. As well as the fact that Androids have been hinted at in Manmade Sheep and while are they all female? For starters, the Mang are an All-Female race from Underworld-Realm, so even though Manmade Sheep takes place on earth in the year 2015 and is a part of the Pagan Wars-series. The Mang actually come from Underworld-Realm in From Child to Man, Book-Zero. The region that the characters in Book-Zero ORIGINALLY came from, the Tanis Dragon Dynasty of Tanis Island, is ruled by the Tanis Dragonoids. During the Primordial-stages of Tanis Island, the Tanis Dragonoids successfully defeated all of the other primordial-races of the island and established themselves as the dominant race of the island. This included the Tanis-Mang there. Tanis-Mang were incorporated into the Dragon Dynasty as a warrior-race and excelled as the advanced and reserve forces of the Dragon Dynasty. At the height of the Dragon Dynasty the Tanis-Mang, who breed at the same ridiculous rate as the rest of the Mang of Underworld-Realm, actually commanded entire campaigns during the Dragon Dynasty's Total Conquest attempt of Underworld-Realm. During this time the Dragon Dynasty dispatched spies and scouts to various otherdimensional-worlds with earth being one of them. These initial groups fought against the Martians of Earth who had been forced to abandon Mars due to the ill-advised experiments of the Atlanteans. Having exterminated the dinosaurs and terraformed the planet, the Martians of Earth were not happy with the otherdimensional intrusions by the Dragon Dynasty of Underworld-Realm. The war between Neo-Mars and the Dragon Dynasty devastated earth, but the Dragon Dynasty ceased hostilities to concentrate on matters in Underworld-Realm. Thousands of years later the Dragon Dynasty would once again send spies and scouts to earth, only to find that the Neo-Martians had left and they'd left behind what we all know as human-beings. Again matters within the Dragon Dynasty caused them to cease operations on earth and this time tens-of-thousands of years passed before intelligence operations began again. This time however the Dragon Dynasty was determined to leave a permanent base of operations and actually begin to influence earth's development as they saw fit. The year was 1910 and earth had changed dramatically from the last time the Dragon Dynasty had visited her. The first thing that stood out was that human-beings had lost all ability to utilize and generate arcane energy. What we would call "magic" as well as "voodooism" and the so-called "occult". The loss of these abilities alone makes modern-day man a sick joke to the Dragonoids of Tanis Island. Where their sheer size alone and physical capabilities would allow them to wholesale slaughter entire continents of humans. This would lead to a lone Tanis Dragonoid being assigned to earth and because of how feeble humans had become, he was only given the genes of Tanis-Mang and the bare essential equipment to begin creating ARTIFICIAL Mang. The lone Tanis Dragon Agent would take the name Charles Pagan. He decided to take the first name of Charles after Charles Darwin, because he found Darwin's theories and Darwin himself, laughable. Since he was aware that Darwin clearly did not know that human-beings are nothing more than devolved Martians. Where all around him he saw the same kind of reckless pollution that had helped to doom and destroy Mars, but also!? He saw that once again it was the Atlanteans, or at least, Their Descendants. Who were once again racing headlong into ecological extermination at the expense of all else and all others. He then decided on the "family name" of Pagan, because he loved the superstitious stupidity of humans. Especially since he knew that at one time they used to be able to do the things that they were now writing tall tales about and giving glory to some invisible hand and invisible man. The next thing he did was begin checking to make sure that the Martians had actually left, if not flat out abandoned, earth! It was only after he was sure no one with any real power could interfere that he began building up what would become the PAGAN-CORPORATION. This is where the PAGAN-Mang come from. They are bioengineered in bio-birthing pods and are grown as a series of lines in a nobility-caste-style. Thus the PAGAN-Empress Unileska, is the most powerful and highest ranking of the PAGAN-Mang. Each PAGAN-Empress has the same starting "standard name" of Ayaana-Infinity, however? Each one has a literal number with Ayaana-Infinity 0 being the first and oldest of whichever facility or region she may belong to. Because the PAGAN-Mangs are nothing but bioengineered clones, each nobility-series has her own common-tendencies that vary strictly through their life experiences, meaning!? A newly born PAGAN-Empress will strictly follow the base personality of a PAGAN-Empress, making her easily predictable if you actually know the psych-profile of the PAGAN-Empress-type. That still doesn't exactly help if you lack the ability to get past her power-levels and ability to take and deal out massive amounts of damage. The bottom line is that the Dragon Dynasty thought so little of modern-day earth that they didn't even bother to give Charles Pagan ACTUAL MANG. This would come back to become a big problem when Pagan himself became tired of wasting his time attempting to conceal PAGAN-CORPS otherdimensional origin. Following the orders that he was given, Pagan began to DIRECTLY AND DRAMATICALLY SHAPE EARTH'S DEVELOPMENT! Using his advanced knowledge he began to set up his offices and facilities all across the world. Instigating and alleviating global issues as he saw fit. Bringing him into conflict with many of the superpowers of yesteryear and the rising powers of present-day! The United States of America became the American Empire through its dealings with Pagan and his PAGAN-CORP. The Soviet Union became the Soviet Empire. While the Congo became the Republic of Congo and absorbed its surrounding neighbors. Various Central American countries went through various rises and falls thanks to PAGAN-CORP backing and contracts! It would be during all of this meddling that Charles Pagan would end up faced with a dilemma, as nuclear power became more and more prevalent. He found that the proliferation of nuclear arms and usage, caused problems with otherdimensional-travel and communications. Faced with the possibility of being PERMANENTLY TRAPPED on earth, Pagan ABANDONED PAGAN-CORP to his PAGAN-Mang and returned to Tanis-Island. However some of the more powerful human empires had been digging and searching for means to fight back against PAGAN-CORP and they'd collectively found enough Neo-Martian artifacts and relics to begin a basic means of fighting back against PAGAN-Mang. Human scientist had been working overtime to try to find a way to prevent more otherdimensional-interference and had found it in nuclear energy. So while Pagan and his PAGAN-Mang had little respect for humans, they'd grossly underestimated them and Charles Pagan had unwittingly found himself fallen deep into their trap! The Foundation of Counterstrike had come from the various world governments seeking a way to drive Pagan off of earth! While being able to find a way to get their hands on his PAGAN-CORP technology! While the PAGAN-Mang are formidable, they are still constrained and predictable, especially without their Master directing and influencing their every move. Now!? With Charles Pagan gone, the multitudes of PAGAN-Empresses were left with the fact that they were all of EQUAL RANK. So which one of them was now in charge in their Master's absence!? Having accomplished their main objective of driving Charles Pagan from earth, Counterstrike then launched a series of covert-attacks against specific PAGAN-CORP facilities! While the losses were high, the gains were higher! And thus the means was STOLEN from PAGAN-CORP that would allow for the creation of the ARC-Mang! The ARC-Mangs, Artificially Created-Mangs, would be the answer to helping to wipe out PAGAN-CORP. But trying to do away with the flaws of the PAGAN-Mangs, while making the ARC-Mangs unable to rebel against their human-masters was priority one! Thus the ARC-Mangs were merged with earth animal-DNA and created so that they had VISIBLE animal-features and traits, like actual animal-ears and tails. A hybrid-human project was also undertaken to modify human agents to be able to work alongside ARCs. This would begin the hot-and-cold running war between Counterstrike and PAGAN-CORP. It would also signal the ever-increasing usage of nuclear power in order to keep any other Underworld-Realm superpowers off-earth! I will get deeper into the differences between PAGAN-Mang and ARC-Mang in my next post.....